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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Lucille Gomez Talks About Talent

In this Talent Bank column, Lucille Gomez talks about discovering, developing and disciplining talent. Click on the image to make it larger.

One of the key factors to developing talent is something that most people don't want to think about. Discovering one's talent, developing that talent and putting it to good use takes one character quality that is sometimes in short suppply, and that is patience. It takes patience to envision, plan and execute any worthwhile creative project. Lucille Gomez, a well-known person in the local crafts circles, said that helping people have the patience to finish crafts projects is one of the main goals in her classes. She is currently teaching folk art, painting detailed "country" pictures on decorative wooden items. While it doesn't take a lot of talent to do folk art, it does take patience, she said. "Most people look at this and say, my gosh, I could never do that," she remarked. "But if people like what they are doing enough, they'll have the patience to try it and finish it." Once her students discover that they can accomplish producing an attractive work of folk art, they learn to have a little more patience while they are doing it. "I've seen people who say they have no patience sit down and begin to enjoy what they are doing, and that gives them the patience they need to finish it," she explained. The pride of finishing something nice helps develop the craft student's patience needed to get it done. The three keys are, first, convince them they can do it, second convince them it will really be worth doing, and third, provoke enough patience at the beginning to get the project started. Lucille said the patience needed to complete anything comes from the interest, the enjoyment, and the desire to creatively produce something of artistic value. Someone not interested in life and the creative expression of it will naturally not have the desire or the patience to finish works of craft art.